Wednesday, November 10, 2010

blown away

At the end of the day today I was standing in the hallway chatting with one of our literacy collaborative coaches. I was showing her the work from the wonder center and I mentioned that I was blown away by some of their work. As we stood looking at the backwards s and the phonetically spelling posted on the wall I heard a voice behind me.

"Mrs. Lipstick was blown away?"

I turned around to see one of my former students standing there with a small smile on his face. Until today he'd barely said two words to me all year and usually responded to my "good mornings!" and "How are you?s" with grunts. So I was surprised to see him initiating conversation with such enthusiasm.

"Mrs. Lipstick, you were blown away?" he asked again, curiously.

Ah, yes. It wasn't that he had any interest in talking to me. It was only that he'd happened to be walking by when he heard a particularly fascinating tidbit from a teacher. I'm sure the mental picture in his head was too good for him to pass by and despite his best efforts he had to confirm whether or not I really had to knocked over by a sudden gust of wind.

Once we explained what I'd meant he looked disappointed, but he continued with the conversation, filling me in on his year and telling me about his family.

"Oh, and Mrs. Lipstick?" he asked as we walked down the hall.
"I hit those kids. I said I was sorry, but I hit my friends."
"When? This year or last year?" I asked, confused. How did hitting his friends have anything to do with anything?
"Last year. I hit them. Yeah. I said I was sorry. Ok, bye!" and he was off.

Did he finally want to come clean about some incident I can't even remember? Did the idea of me being blown away encourage him to confess his sins? Or was it just a six year old brain bouncing from topic to topic on a conversational trampoline?

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